Tuesday Cairngorm

07/02/2012 College Day at Cairngorms

We left the college at around 0830 and headed for Corrie an Sneachda.(‘Corrie of Snow’). On the bus my lecturer gave the class a session plan detailing what we were going to be doing. It was to be a refresher day on a huge range of winter skills. We are to soon to start coaching students these skills so need to be fully confident in our personal abilities. Upon arriving we got kitted up and headed up the path to Corrie an Sneachda. A path that has become very well known to me. On route we discussed avalanches, snow pack and how to teach this to a group, how to address a group, some local information and some chat about the natural history of the area. We cut off the track and headed to the lateral moraines.

Me running to the weather station on top of Cairngorm

On arriving we went over emergency snow shelters, kicking steps and got some more local information. We walked threw the Sneachda to the ice fields at the back where we put our crampons, helmets and harnesses on. My lecture then gave us a lesson on how to deliver a crampon session to a group. I really enjoyed this and learned some new tricks that I can use when coaching. We then went over self belay and how to deliver this as a session to a group.

We were then shown where you can bottom rope ice and mixed climbs and went over how to coach  ice climbing. This was a very interesting session; I never knew there was such an accessable place to bottom rope ice. We all had a go on the ice field practising our self pulling over some awkward bulges of ice. Once we finished this session we headed back into the boulder field in the Sneachda, took our crampons off and walked back to the bus. Everyone fell at least once on the way back to the bus. We headed to the chippy in Aviemore and then back to college.

Overall it was a very good day I learned a lot and picked up some handy tips and tricks that I can hopefully I can use when teaching a group winter skills.

Corrie an Sneachda

Sunday/Monday Cairngorms

On Saturday I headed up north to Corrie an Sneachda for some winter action with Chris, Brodie and Johny (all friends from my college class). We packed all of our kit into Brodie’s car (filling it  to max) and left Falkirk at 21.30 hours.  We had to make a quick detour to Grangemouth as Brodie had left his boots in his house. The drive up was in some seriously icy and fogging conditions, oddly I felt safe being surrounded by four sleeping bags which I figured would cushion me in the event of a crash. We arrived at the top car park of the Cairngorm Mountain Ski Centre at around 12am. Chris and I pitched my lovely tent next to the car, Brodie and Johnny slept in the car. Before diving into our sleeping bags Chris and I packed our bags for the following day so we could have an early start in the morning. Once this was done we dived into the tent and got our head down.

05/02/2012

Awoke 6:15am, quickly put the tent down and headed of into the Sneachda.  Johnny and Brodie left just after us as they took a bit longer getting up and ready. The plan was Johnny and Brodie were going to climb the Runnel and Chris and I were going to climb Hidden Chimney Direct and finish up the Slant. We had two way radios with us so we could stay in contact whilst on our routes. Chris and I got to the bottom of the Mess of Pottage Buttress at about half 8and took our time getting kitted up as we were the first ones there. We built the belay at the bottom of the route and I got racked up. By this time the masses of people had arrived and there was a group of climbers belaying next to us. (They were doing the Haston Line) I looked up at my route, this was the hardest grade I had tried at tech 5 and it was safe to say I was nervous. It was in lean nick and covered with a dusting of about 1cm deep snow so I could not see any placement for my feet or tools.

I placed my tools and stepped up placing a nut as I went. I then hooked higher up pulled up on my tools and tried to get my feet to stick. I couldn’t find a placement for my feet so grabbed onto my tools harder and then the scratching of my feet began. With some screeching and lifting my feet into unusually high positions I got up to a small ledge where I could rest. PHEW! Upon hearing the scratching of my feet and my physical grunting a crowd below were now watching and me gave me some cheers of encouragement. I had made a total of about six moves and I was already pumped and scared. I battered another couple of nuts in and stood there resting, I felt myself breathing heavily and saw large clouds of my breath. The crowd was pushing me on.

 “Time to move” I told myself and I found a hook with my left hand tool, worked my feet up and stood up. I started clearing the snow with my right hand searching for a placement. I found a crack and placed my tool and torque,d hard and stood up again. Holding the torque I fiddled in another nut and moved up again. With some more scratching of feet and a few confidence calls of “watch me” to Chris I made it to another rest ledge. I was now about 25meters high and started to worry. Thoughts of me falling  started creeping into my head. I tried to fight them back but I couldn’t.

I WAS NOW CRAPPING IT AND PUMPED!

 I smacked in two nuts with my ice tool and tried to move up, it was difficult. I stepped back down to my ledge. I had lost my bottle! I stood there for a while trying to force myself on but it wasn’t to be. I shouted to Chris “lower me down, I’m done” and with that my attempt was over. I stripped the gear as I came down but had to leave two nuts and a gold quickdraw behind. (If any reader finds them, it would be much appreciated if I could have them back.)  

Chris’s and the group that had watched my attempt gave me the usual chat after failure, “that was a really good effort” “Conditions made it tuff” etc. etc. I was just gutted and angry at myself not for just failing but mostly for the complete lack of bottle and technique. I sat feeling sorry for myself and resting my knackered arms. GUTTED!

After the ropes where pulled down we decided to just do the slant which was a grade 2.  I needed to get up any route to try and get the feeling of failure to disappear. We walked up the bottom of Jacob’s Ladder and built our belay. I led off for the first pitch, after my previous experience I flew up this route which felt almost like a walk in the park. I built my belay at the bottom of Hidden Chimney. It was very busy there were four other groups with belays set up next to me. I started bringing Chris up. Looking down waiting to see Chris climb round the corner I noticed another climber looking up towards me. He must have been in late 40s and was wearing all blue. He pointed up towards me and in a stern voice shouted “you there take on blue!” he had a voice of authority like a man from the military. I though there was no way he was talking to me and just continued belaying, but again he pointed up. This time shouting “BLUE ….. TAKE ON”. Chis then climbed round the corner and up to my belay ledge and told me there was a bit slack on the blue rope and he had asked the man to tell me to take in.

My ice tool

We sorted the rack and Chris led the second pitch, he led it well and pulled over an awkward bulge in the middle. He reached the belay and found there were very few placements to build a belay. He managed to use another climber’s nut to reinforce his belay. He belayed me up to him and once at his ledge I looked up at the final pitch. It was just a plod up, an easy angled gully. I took off and told Chris that as soon as the rope tightens, start climbing. Once I topped out I ran away from the crag until Chris also topped out. We packed away our kit and radioed Johnny and Brodie to see how they were getting on. They had just topped out to so we waited for them at 1141 (spot height)  We all walked back to the car together discussing our routes.

Me on top off 1141

We headed into Aviemore for a chippy tea and a kit shop traverse. It was still early so we watched the rugby, Ireland vs Wales in Café Mamb before heading back to the car park, pitched our tent, got in and quickly fell asleep.

06/02/2012

On Monday morning I woke up to the sound of a member of staff loudly banging cones on the floor and coughing loudly (obviously a polite hint for us to move the tent.) We decided instead off going to do another climb we would practise our winter skills and bag the Cairngorm munro. Brodie and Johnny headed off and soloed Aladdin’s Coulor. (grade 1 climb)   Chris and I left the car park at 8.40am and headed towards 1145 (spot height), on route we saw some pretty cool looking ‘rime’ attached to a fence line. We cut off and went to the lateral moraines. Upon arriving we had a competition to see who could dig the best snow hole just using their ice tool.  I was cursing my micro adze as it would only scoop out small amounts of bullet hard snow. After about five minutes of digging the sun came out and it was absolutely beautiful weather. We dug until we where happy with the emergency snow holes. We decided that we had made two totally different styles and agreed to call it a draw!

Head bands rock!

We then went on to practise making snow bollards. I made a small one, threaded the rope threw and got Chris to test it. He South African abseiled off it and ‘surprise’ it held. Chris decided to test it further and started bouncing on it, I prayed that it would break but it didn’t.  I also grabbed the ropes and the both of us really started pulling but still it held. We then practised our abseil techniques both South African and Classic style be3fore heading back up hill to 1141. On route Chris hurt his knee so we took it easy and plodded to the top. We sat at 1141 for a while before heading to the top of Cairngorm.  As we reached the top we heard a strange mechanical noise coming from the weather station. Suddenly a part of the station rose  up and a whole range of gizmo’s began spinning around. After a few minutes it sunk back down into the station.  

On route back down top we stopped at the Ptarmigan restaurant for a look at the little museum. It was surprisingly interesting and had a whole range of info including geology, how the Cairngorm’s were formed and the history of mountaineering. We then walked back to the car and waited for Johnny and Brodie to return before returning home.

03/02/2012 Coaching at The Climbing Academy

 Friday I spent the day coaching a class at The Climbing Academy (TCA) in Glasgow. The TCA is a warehouse that has been turned into a massive bouldering centre. The class I was coaching were the same ones I had the previous Friday. This was there first time at the TCA, and I think some of them where a bit wary at the thought of just bouldering. The TCA is very cold because of its size so before we started we had a big warm up. This consisted of tig, backwards running tig, hot lava floor, easy traversing of the wall, mobilization and some dynamic stretches. Participating int the warm up games with this group is always good fun as the majority of them give a big effort and they have a good sense of humour.

The Climbing Academy Glasgow

I had to do another coaching assessment so after the warm up I left the group with Brodie, Johny and Craig (the three other coaches in my college class) and went and marked out some bouldering routes using chalk. Once I had done this I got two students and completed my assessment. My assessment was to deliver a session on crimping and show progression throughout my session.  I used techniques including getting the pupils to climb with ping pong balls in their hands which forced them open crimp and got the students to give each other feedback to keep them focused when not climbing. The session went well and I passed the assessment (same goes for my assessment last Friday).

My assessment completed I went back to coaching as normal. We did a whole range of things including playing bouldering games, trying to complete all the routes of a certain colour, getting the pupils to use tape and mark holds to create their own routes and helping some pupils that climb hard to work some routes. We left the TCA at 15.00 and headed back to college. On the way back to college I chatted with the students and they all said they enjoyed the day but said that they missed the ropes (actually doing routes).I liked hearing this as that’s what I enjoy. Once back at college we packed away and the student’s left.  Next Friday we are taking the same group for a day of winter mountaineering skills. I can’t wait!